Lacey Williams ’16 is studying how changes in the ecosystem are affecting great whites.

Lurking deep in the murky waters of False Bay, South Africa, a 2,000-pound, 16-foot-long great white shark prepares for its attack. Speeding up to a swim of 40 miles per hour, the “white death” leaps out of the water and into the air, sneaking up on the cape fur seal it was tracking for some time.

Lacey Williams ’16 watches from her boat.

Widely considered some the most dangerous areas to swim, the False Bay waters around Seal Island have some of the highest numbers of predatory events by great whites in the world “by a long shot,” says Williams.

As a research assistant, Williams is studying the sharks’ ambush strategy — called “breaching” — to write a paper and answer some unsolved mysteries about its process. She’s teamed up with Chris and Monique Fallows, who own Apex Shark Expeditions, and Neil Hammerschlag, a professor and director of the shark research and conservation program at the University of Miami.

Those foggy False Bay waters only allow the researchers to watch the sharks hunt their prey during the climax of the breaching process. To answer questions about what happens during the preamble to the breach, they’ll monitor the crystal clear waters of Plettenberg Bay (about 433 km east of False Bay), where an emerging seal colony has attracted more great whites, altering the ecosystem.

“This project is essentially a fill-in-the-blank,” Williams says. “[For example,] we haven’t been able to observe how a great white shark stalks a seal underwater before attacking, how the seals and the sharks use the seabed, and how deep the sharks start before they breach.”

The observational research in Plettenberg Bay will give the team insight into the predator-prey interaction of sharks and cape fur seals. They’ll observe movement patterns, the sharks’ intensity, and the prey’s response based on age, size of the shark, and other factors. With an influx of great whites to the area, this is uncharted territory in the shark research world.

“We don’t know how the ecosystem around Plettenberg Bay will alter not only the sharks’ hunting strategies, but also the seals’ evasive strategies,” Williams says. “This is an opportunity to answer so many questions using noninvasive methods.”

Williams met the Fallowses through Apex, an ecotourism company, when she went shark cage diving during a family trip. She then became a crew member for two summers before beginning research. At Colgate, as a biology major, opportunities like an extended study trip to the Dolphin Research Center in the Florida Keys fueled her interest in marine life. Williams is planning to enter graduate school in fall 2019, but before doing so, she’ll continue her research with Hammerschlag and the Fallowses.

This summer, the group will travel to a marine protected area (MPA) in De Hoop, South Africa. They will identify endemic shark species (including smooth hammerheads), tag many of them, and use other survey methods to assess the species. The researchers are looking into the smaller shark species because they believe that smaller shark populations are declining due to a commercial fishery in the area. Overfishing of the smaller sharks could alter the food web, because they are an important part of the great white’s diet.

“[The loss of great whites] has been devastating in terms of marine biology and science,” says Williams.

Through this research, Williams and her team hope to show the South African government that MPAs are critical for protecting these species — the economy and environment depend on them. Best case scenario: The government will extend the protected area over the entire habitat, creating a buffer zone for the sharks.

“We are at the point of no return,” Williams says. “If we don’t protect them now, we will lose them forever.”


Did you know?

  • You’re more likely to be killed by a hippo than a shark.
  • Great white sharks can’t survive in captivity. The longest a great white was held? About six months.
  • Williams’s interest in sharks started with her morbid fascination with shark attacks.
  • Williams is the 14th member of her family to attend Colgate, dating back to 1846.
  • Sometimes Williams names the sharks she frequently sees. Her most recent favorite: Pipsqueak, the smallest she’s ever seen, at 2.2 meters.
  • Great whites are the largest predatory fish.
  • The great white is the last living member of the genus Carcharodon.